How To Become A One-Term President

This syllabus is written strictly for presidential candidates who would like to serve only one term and leave office without any legacy. If candidates adhere to the syllabus and thereafter read their books with zeal, their dream of becoming a one-term president of Ghana will come to pass. It is not going to be any strenuous exercise because one candidate who followed the syllabus three years ago is going to go down in history as the first person to serve one term as the president of Ghana. The watchwords are lies and promises. To start with, pack your campaign bag with enticing promises and lies. As you go about campaigning, drop the promises one after the other in all the nooks and crannies of Ghana. Always open your mouth widely and bravely tell naked and gargantuan lies anytime you address a rally. Tell the electorate that you can bring the sea from Takoradi, through Kumasi to Bolgatanga and open a seaport in all the places that the sea will reach. Tell the people of Tamale when you happen to go there that you will build a bridge at the Jubilee Park because there is a river there which has not been identified by anyone except you. At Yendi, tell the Andanis that after all, the Ya Na is not dead and that you will produce the great king alive when they vote you into power. Just tell them that the reason why people are finding it difficult to prosecute the suspected killers of the Ya Na was because they had to come to the realization that the man was alive and kicking. To get support from the Abudus, tell them that those who were arrested, tried and acquitted for the murder of the Ya Na will receive compensation for wrongful arrest and detention. When you zoom to the Central region, tell the Fantes there that when they vote you into power, you will dilute the sea in order to make it less salty so that fingerlings of tilapia can be planted in the sea to increase the fish stock. Do not forget to tell the fisher folks that the use of light for fishing is the latest craze and that you will not only ban pair trawling, but anyone caught pair trawling will be sentenced to death by hanging. When you go to Elmina, tell the electorate that because gold has been detected at the beaches, you will establish a gold mine so that the teaming unemployed youth can get employment. Do not hesitate to tell the people there that when voted to power, 20 fishmongers from Elmina will be given ministerial appointments. Promise the chief fisherman that he will be appointed the Minister for Fisheries and that his linguist will be rewarded with the position of Municipal Chief Executive of Cape Coast. In the Western region, tell them that because oil has been found there, you will give the people 50 percent of the oil revenue because the sea belongs to them. Try to convince them that the last time when the then running mate of the NDC, Mr. John Dramani Mahama promised to give them only 10 percent of the oil revenue, it was an insult because the percentage was negligible. At Sefwi Akontombra, tell the cocoa farmers that the introduction of mass spraying of their cocoa farms by the Kufour administration was not an ideal one. Do not hesitate to tell them that if by the grace of God you become the president of Ghana, you will import helicopters to do the spraying. At Adabokrom, tell the cocoa farmers that the use of mats to dry cocoa beans is not the best and that when you hold the reins of power, you will introduce the use of electricity to dry cocoa beans. As for the people of the Volta region, you will have no problem convincing them. Just tell them that when they vote for you to become the president of mother Ghana, you will establish a cat meat factory at Hohoe, where the meat would be canned for export. Tell them the unemployed youth will be organized to form cat-hunting groups to feed the factory and that Dr. Kwabena Adjei would be made the head of the hunting gang. At Keta, where the sea always eats the land, tell them the Roman Catholic Church which was submerged under water some years ago will be brought ashore for worshippers to benefit. If you go to Ho and tell them that you will build a university for them, they will not believe in you because President Mills has already built one there and students have started attending that university (sic!!). Because you would be going to that region through the northern corridor, tell them because that road has already been constructed by the Mills administration, you will channel resources to level the scalp from Koforidua through Okere to Ho, so that farmers there could use the land to produce more cassava to feed a proposed starch factory at Sogakope. Anytime you happen to be at the Brong Ahafo region, try as much as possible to start your campaign tour from Yeji and all the towns and villages along the Volta Lake. Tell them the Volta Lake transport is archaic and cannot withstand the test of time. As a result of that, say you will introduce submarines and luxurious cruise ships like the submerged Costa Concordia. Do not forget to tell the fishermen along the lake that the fish fingerlings Dr. Kwame Nkrumah planted in the lake were not the best and that when you come to power, you will bring whales and seals from the Atlantic Ocean. You need to organize a triumphant entry to Sunyani, the Brong Ahafo regional capital. The people there will vote for you if you tell them that when you hold the reins of power, you will introduce the planting of super highbred Odum, Wawa, Mahogany and other tree species which will take only one year to mature to feed the Oti Yeboah Sawmills. Electorates from the Upper West and East regions will surely welcome you warmly if you promise to revamp the Tiger Pito at Bolgatanga so that the products could be exported to neighbouring countries to earn foreign exchange. Tell the people of Bolgatanga that instead of using cows as raw materials for the Bolgatanga Meat Factory, you will import camels from the Sahelian countries and elephants from Kenya to feed the factory. Promise the Frafra people one man will be entitled to 20 dogs and you will scoop almost all the votes there. If you are able to hoodwink the electorate this way, you will become the president of Ghana. But when you fail to honour all those juicy promises, they will surely vote you out to become a one-term president of Ghana. You then become an accomplished loser. On a more serious note, my dear and cherished reader, it is not good to make empty promises and lie through the teeth. One thing which helped the NDC to come to power was the promise to introduce a one-time premium for the National Health Insurance Scheme. Mills and his cohorts knew very well that what they were telling Ghanaians was not feasible but they went ahead to give that promise. Less than one year to end his first term, Mills and the NDC have rather introduced what they call Capitation on pilot basis. Dentists and doctors have kicked against the introduction of this particular model and promised to bring back the killer Cash and Carry system which led to the death of several Ghanaians before the introduction of the NHIS. In the run-up to the 2008 general elections, Accra in particular was engulfed with filth and the then mayor was finding it very difficult to surmount the situation. The NDC capitalized on the filth to tell the good people of this country that when voted into power, they would take only one hundred days to rid the city of filth. They even went ahead to include the promise in their manifesto. Go to Maamobi, Agbogbogloshie and Kaneshie and see!!! Less than one year to end his term of office, Mills� regime is about to leave the filthiest environment in the history of Ghana. As for the promise to deal with corruption, only Woyome, Betty Mould, Asimenu and Duffour can tell. Armed robbery? Forget it. They are even robbing soldiers and raping victims. They are sprouting like poisonous mushrooms in cow dung and the end to the menace is unforeseeable. Where I come from, our elders say a promise is like a debt and so anyone who promises should remember that a time will come when you will be called upon to deliver your promises or be damned. The time is this year. In December, when we go to the polls, we will be demanding for the payment of that debt which the Mills/Mahama administration owes Ghanaians. And if that debt is not paid, Professor Mills will be the first president to receive the marching orders after his first term in office as the president of the sovereign state of Ghana. If this comes to pass, politicians in Ghana will dare not play on our intelligence again. It is payback time and we are readying our cheques. The storm is gathering and the sailors are shivering.